Redesigned, Bulkier Honda Insight to Challenge Prius 638
In what probably amounts to good news for consumers eyeing a hybrid for their next vehicle purchase, Honda is resurrecting the "Insight" name, this time in the form of a five-seat, Prius-like hatchback. The automaker's announcement included the tantalizing statement that the cost would be "significantly below [that of] hybrids available today," but provided no further details on pricing. Although Honda may have some trouble unseating Toyota's dominance of this particular hybrid market, hopefully the Insight's reintroduction will help to make hybrid cars even more affordable to consumers. This is also welcome news to folks like myself who, after the initial flurry of excitement when the now-retired original Insight was introduced in '99, were left scratching their heads at Honda's hybrid strategy as Toyota picked up their dropped ball and ran with it.
Screw this (Score:5, Informative)
Almost bought one. (Score:3, Informative)
I almost bought one when it first came out but the test-drive was horrible. The rear-view mirror was unusable due to the design of the rear window/hatch. The main support cross-member completely blocked the view splitting the mirror in half. That left you with trying to look over the top of it (and seeing mostly sky) or under it through a darkly tinted 'lower window' which only left a view of the bumper of the car 5 feet behind you.
I am 5'10" tall so completely 'average' by North American standards, but perhaps this car was designed to 'fit' an average Asian.
Re:Almost bought one. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Screw this (Score:5, Informative)
Well, VW has double-clutched diesels in the American market right now. (For those who aren't familiar, the double-clutch design essentially allows a car to be driven as an automatic while preserving the superior characteristics of a manual, also allowing for millisecond shift-times.)
Diesel fuel economy is arguably good enough that it don't need any sort of hybrid system. They're also decently fun to drive, which you certainly can't say about the current crop of hybrids.
Unfortunately, VW probably has the double-clutch design patented to hell and back, and has no hybrid technology of its own. Seeing the two together therefore seems fairly unlikely. On the other hand, a diesel Golf/Rabbit should be making its way to American markets in a year or two.
There's not enough natural gas for cars (Score:1, Informative)
The problem with natural gas is that there's not enough of it. The biggest reason for the rise in electric tariffs in the early part of the 2000's was largely because everyone built natural gas power plants, and, they more or less used up all the natural gas. Now you want to go and build natural gas cars... good luck getting natural gas. Proposed terminals for importing LNG all along the east coast have been killed left and right, there's not enough domestic supply in the lower 48 and the uber pipeline from Alaska faces a storm of environmental protests.
Re:The problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
Very true. I was in the market for a new car 3 months ago. I tabulated vehicles based on gas consumption, monthly cost to own, projected maintenance etc. Hybrids tended to have a minimal savings per month ~80-100 bucks~ but had a massively larger investment upfront were always smaller in size and had weaker engines than the cheaper gas car.(people seem to forget hybrids in addition to higher cost don't have good financing)
Hybrids weren't worth buying even if the price of gas was 8 dollars a gallon. I projected that it would still take a minimum 5 years to break EVEN with a gasoline car. At current gas prices most hybrids averaged out to 11 years before they broke even with gasoline cars.
So yeah, get a hybrid if you're A) planning owning the same car for a minimum of 11 years or B) want to feel that you're helping the environment (a questionable assumption in its own right but a topic for another conversation!), otherwise stick to gasoline. As an aside that 11 year calculation doesn't take into account what happens when you need a new several thousand dollar battery - they supposedly have an 8 year life-cycle; chances are you'll have to replace it and that pushes the break-even point out to 15 years! - OUCH
What it really came down to was equivalent of giving the bank around 10,000 dollars and having the bank pay it back over a 10 year period without interest. Take the difference between hybrid and gas car and put it into a bank at 4% savings the. At the end of 10 years with the same initial investment both individuals own their respective cars, one has now broken even on it while the other has an extra 2000 sitting in the bank (remember the gas-owner was using the interest to subsidize the difference in ownership.)
Hybrids right now only really offer peace of mind, but most people think they save money but never actually bother to do any calculations.
2001 Civic gets 40 mpg (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks, but I'll stick with my car that doesn't use 20 pounds of cadmium and which cost only $6000 used.
Also, I'll walk and bike when possible.
And I'm never, ever going to buy a hybrid unless it has a manual transmission.
$19000 Base MSRP (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uhhh (Score:2, Informative)
you can get a car that gets better mileage
Gets better mileage?
You need to look into that. The prius gets ~45mpg in the city (fueleconomy.gov has it rated as 48mpg city and 45mpg highway). I won't dispute your other claims, since I haven't driven a civic or a fit (or a prius for that matter), but the mileage certainly favors the prius (and insights get even better mileage than Priuses. My little insight gets 50-55mpg around town) . . .
Re:Or maybe turnabout? (Score:3, Informative)
"but provided no further details on pricing..." (Score:3, Informative)
New Honda Insight Hybrid Revealed, Expected $18,500 Price Tag To Make It World's Cheapest
Dont know about you, but I would say thats a bit more detail on pricing, $18500, about the price of a standard/econo car these days.
tm
Re:The problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
If you have your car payed off and spend $70 a week for gas, that is a total of $3640 for an entire year.
On the other hand, if you buy a $25000 hybrid, you might only need to buy $30 of gas a week, but unless your car payments are less than $120 a month, you aren't saving any money by buying a hybrid.
Or you just drive your old car more sensibly and spend less than $25 week on gas. Going from driving the way I used to, I got 28 mpg per tank. Slowing down and applying a few mileage enhancing techniques, I have been getting 36 mpg per tank. That didn't cost me a dime, and I paid off my car 4 years ago.
The standards changed for 2008 (at least) (Score:5, Informative)
The EPA changed its fuel economy standards in 2008, and perhaps other times between 1989 and then. The 2007 Prius is rated at 60 mpg city, 51 highway; the 2008, which is really the same car, is rated at 48/45. So you definitely can't compare the 1989 numbers with the 2008.
Re:The problem is... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html#battery [hybridcars.com]
How often do hybrid batteries need replacing? Is replacement expensive and disposal an environmental problem?
The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the carmaker.
Battery toxicity is a concern, although today's hybrids use NiMH batteries, not the environmentally problematic rechargeable nickel cadmium. "Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. Toyota and Honda say that they will recycle dead batteries and that disposal will pose no toxic hazards. Toyota puts a phone number on each battery, and they pay a $200 "bounty" for each battery to help ensure that it will be properly recycled.
There's no definitive word on replacement costs because they are almost never replaced. According to Toyota, since the Prius first went on sale in 2000, they have not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.
Re:My gas guzzler is more environmentally friendly (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The problem is... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html#battery [hybridcars.com]
How often do hybrid batteries need replacing? Is replacement expensive and disposal an environmental problem?
The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the carmaker.
Battery toxicity is a concern, although today's hybrids use NiMH batteries, not the environmentally problematic rechargeable nickel cadmium. "Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. Toyota and Honda say that they will recycle dead batteries and that disposal will pose no toxic hazards. Toyota puts a phone number on each battery, and they pay a $200 "bounty" for each battery to help ensure that it will be properly recycled.
There's no definitive word on replacement costs because they are almost never replaced. According to Toyota, since the Prius first went on sale in 2000, they have not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.
Re:Or maybe turnabout? (Score:3, Informative)
http://pppad.blogspot.com/2007/05/nimh-held-hostage-by-chevron-texaco.html [blogspot.com]
It's a moot point though. Li-Ion (or a variation of lithium tech) or EEStor's Ultracaps will have surpassed Ni-MH by 2014.
Re:The problem is... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not worthy the name of Insight (Score:4, Informative)
The low weight and the 990 CC engine with electric assist ensure that I am the one pulling away with spinning wheels at the lights leaving muscle cars in the dust.
Bullshit. Unless the other guy was asleep. 0-60 in 10.6s [insightcentral.net].
Re:The problem is... (Score:5, Informative)
This October's Consumer Reports article "Which affordable hybrids save you the most money?" disagrees with you.
Conclusion: "Despite their higher price, many models pay off after only a year" and some models "can save more than $4,000 over five years."
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/news/2008/10/affordable-hybrids/overview/affordable-hybrids-ov.htm [consumerreports.org]
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You also complain that hybrids have "weaker engines than the cheaper gas car," forgetting that electric motors have much better torque than gasoline engines (eg. even diesel locomotives use electric motors) so higher horsepower isn't needed.
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Finally, a reply to your battery FUD: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=954363&cid=24883785 [slashdot.org]
Re:The standards changed for 2008 (at least) (Score:4, Informative)
So you definitely can't compare the 1989 numbers with the 2008.
Right, but the 50MPG figure takes into account those new standards. Hilariously, the highway mileage for that particular Civic before the 2008 adjustments was an even higher 56MPG. See for yourself [fueleconomy.gov]. I have an 08 Civic. It's a small car no doubt, but it's a giant compared to the Civics of olde.
Re:There's not enough natural gas for cars (Score:4, Informative)
DOE Reserve Estimates [doe.gov]
The reserve numbers keep going up because they keep finding more and more of the stuff and nobody is burning it.
Natural gas is a very good option, in fact the best option for internal combustion. All combustion reactions produce CO2 and H20. Natural Gas (CH4) only releases CO2 and H20 upon combustion...no other chemicals like sulfur, mercury or other similarly nasty chemicals to have in the air. It's a big improvement over petroleum-based fuels.
Re:They're holding out on us! (Score:3, Informative)
No. I don't. No more than I have to "look" for a station that takes credit cards or has "midgrade" fuel. If you can't find a station with diesel you shouldn't be driving. Every 'neighborhood' station around here carries it.
And no, the higher cost doesn't make up for the mileage. (They don't cancel out). My identical make and model of car gets 30 MPG. Say I get 50 MPG. To 'break even' diesel would have to cost 5/3 as much as gasoline, but it doesn't.
Re:There's not enough natural gas for cars (Score:3, Informative)
No, there's plenty of natural gas. Known reserves worldwide [wikipedia.org] are about 172 trillion m^3. One m^3 of gas has about as much energy as one liter of oil [wikipedia.org] (38.4 MJ/m^3 vs 38.6 MJ/l).
So 172 trillion m^3 of gas is the energy equivalent of about 172 trillion liters of oil = 1.47 trillion barrels of oil.
Worldwide oil consumption is about 80.29 million barrels per day [cia.gov], or about 30 billion barrels per year.
So if we could instantaneously convert all our oil consumption into natural gas consumption, the known gas reserves would last us 49 years. There's plenty of gas.
The problem with natural gas is its extremely low volumetric energy density. That makes it expensive to store and transport. It's such a hassle that a lot of oil wells (especially offshore) simply burn any extraneous gas which comes up with the oil, instead of trying to capture and store it. The 3600 psi CNG tank in a Honda Civic GX CNG [consumerreports.org] takes up most of the trunk [about.com], and only provides as much energy as 8 gallons of gasoline.
Re:Uhhh (Score:3, Informative)
We've been doing it on aircraft for some time. I believe that reliability figures actually improved in that case, because it's far easier to make an electrical system redundant.
Still, yeah. It makes me a bit uneasy, and seems generally unnecessary.
Re:The problem was with how the insight worked (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The problem was with how the insight worked (Score:3, Informative)
The Insight worked that way because it had a normal transmission. It was not capable of moving without the gasoline engine turning (except when coasting in neutral with the manual transmission model).
Re:The problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.themotorreport.com.au/6042/prius-taxi-belts-out-half-a-million-klicks/ [themotorreport.com.au]
According to Vic Johnston, Toyotaâ(TM)s manager of hybrid sales and fleet strategy, these are the only two Priusâ(TM) in Australia that have even needed a battery replacement at all, since its arrival on our shores in 2001.
"When you consider that the average car in Australia travels approximately 15,000km per year, the 350,000km Prius has crammed over 23 years of average driving into a couple of years,"
"And the 550,000km Prius has fitted 36 years into three years, which is astonishing.
"The average age of the Australian car population is now around 10 years, so the battery is lasting well over double that in distance terms.
"When you consider that the Prius taxis in Cairns are generating half the fuel and service costs of other vehicles in their fleets, the Prius is significantly cheaper in whole-of-life costs.
Re:Screw this (Score:2, Informative)
Naturally, it's too expensive to produce. [treehugger.com]
Most manufacturers actually have this technology [wikipedia.org], it's just something VW pursues a bit more intensively.
Re:The problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
What a load of rubbish. Lots of banks are struggling to improve their liquidity at the moment - deposits from general banking customers are a good way to acheieve this. My standard savings account is paying 5.3% at the moment, and I've got money in a 6-month fixed rate bond offered at 6.76%. I had thought that was a good rate but a couple months later other banks were offering 10% to try and entice savers.
Re:Sometimes you've got to ask yourself... (Score:5, Informative)
The Prius features the raindrop design, which has a lower drag coefficient compared to most other consumer level cars. For example the Honda Civic has a drag coefficient of .36 while the Prius is .26. The Bugatti Veyron is .36 and a Hummer H2 is .57.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficients [wikipedia.org]
Re:My gas guzzler is more environmentally friendly (Score:3, Informative)
Here is the breakdown of tax credits. [irs.gov] As of October 1, 2007 Prius buyers no longer receive any credit.
I wonder how this will work for the Insight. Will they count the vechicles from the original Insight, or will they start the count from zero?
Re:Quiet diesel? (Score:3, Informative)
Torque yes, fuel efficient yes, quiet? You must be joking. Even the best diesel still sounds like a tractor compared to a petrol engine.
I see you haven't been to Europe. The last Diesel I rented in France had a problem - I couldn't tell by ear when the engine was on unless I completely turned off the fan. It was quieter than any non-hybrid/electric I've heard in America, too. Not to mention getting 50 mpg for 90 mph driving and 40 mpg for city driving and having a pretty peppy engine.
Re:Sometimes you've got to ask yourself... (Score:3, Informative)
Time to see the Auditor (Score:4, Informative)
I bought a 2008 Camry Hybrid in January of this year. My car is eligible for $0 tax credit.
Since the 2008 Camry Hybrid only came out late last year, the maximum possible credit you are eligible for is $650... Not $2000.
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=157557,00.html [irs.gov]
I also doubt you get 55 MPG in that thing, I get 43 on occasion, 36 most of the time in city driving. On the highway it gets 35 MPG. 2000/250 = 8 MPG.
Unless there were state tax credits involved, there is FUD at work here and this is NOT an informative post.
Re:The problem is... FUD (Score:3, Informative)
You forgot depreciation and federal tax credits. Consumer Reports ran the numbers [consumerreports.org] this month and came up with several hybrid cars that will save money over their non-hybrid equivalents. These were often the same model of car for a true apples-to-apples comparison. They claim that many hybrids will save money after the first year.
There's a nice table of the results [consumerreports.org], but it's for subscribers. They calculate the total cost of ownership for a five year period, and they come up with $28,250 for the Prius and $29,750 for a Civic LX. The Prius costs $24,170 list and the Civic is $18,430. The Prius has the lowest 5-year total owner cost on the cart.
I think it's fair to assume that gas price inflation will keep pace with the return on a T-Bill, so the interest isn't going to help. It depends a lot on whether we elect another representative from the oil industry as Vice President, but that's a topic for another conversation.
Re:Sometimes you've got to ask yourself... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep! Also, I want to stress that real diesel engines are actually more efficient than gasoline engines, because the compression ratios are so much higher. So it's not really that diesels are dirtier, but rather that the US looks at different pollutants than European countries do.
The two pollutants that diesels have issues with are (1) sulfur dioxide (SO2), and (2) nitrogen oxides (NOx); both cause acid rain. The SO2 is the result of burning high-sulfur fuels, so switching to ULSD, as Andy noted, will solve this problem. NOx, however, is more problematic: These oxides are created unavoidably from the reaction of atmospheric oxygen with nitrogen in the high pressures and temperatures experienced inside diesel engines (the very same factors that make diesels more efficient).
In contrast, gasoline engines tend to produce little sulfur dioxide since they burn low-sulfur gasoline. And since the pressures and temperatures inside them are lower, there's much less NOx production. But for the same reason (lower pressures and temperatures), combustion is not as complete as in diesels, so they tend to release more unburnt hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. These cause photochemical smog, and are powerful greenhouse gasses.
Now, this is where regulatory differences come in: In European countries, NOx emission requirements are not as strict, but hydrocarbon requirements are stricter, whereas in the US it's the reverse. So it's easier for diesel engines to meet requirements in Europe, and for gasoline engines to meet requirements in the US.
One solution to the NOx problem for diesel engines is to treat exhaust with urea. European companies distribute an aqueous urea solution as "AdBlue" -- presumably to avoid the urinary connotations of the "real" chemical name -- and it is available at gas stations. This is a little problematic in that now you have two chemicals that you consume while driving (fuel and urea) instead of just one, and we don't have an AdBlue distribution network in the US, but it does work.
So, that's it for the practical side of things. But before I finish up I want to throw in one theoretical note... I kept saying that diesels are more efficient -- and they are. But the thermodynamic cycle that they use (the "Diesel cycle," obviously enough) is actually not as efficient, fundamentally, as that used by gasoline engines (the Otto Cycle), for the same compression ratios. But diesel engines use compression ratios that are so much higher that they're more efficient anyway (to achieve the same compression ratios in a spark-ignition engine would require harder-to-ignite fuels, like some sort of hypothetical really-high-octane gasoline). So in practice, diesels are the most efficient internal combustion engines.
Re:Sometimes you've got to ask yourself... (Score:3, Informative)
"US manufactures don't bring small Diesels to the US because they're just plain evil."
Suicidal is more like it.
US companies had the prestige/image to bring light diesel pickups to market and sell them effectively because they CREATED the diesel pickup market. Instead they let their small pickup lines become boring and atrophy. Ongoing diesel production would have allowed them to refine their product and produce proven engines (just as VW has done with their automobile engines).
The VW strategy when they built their Rabbit engines was to have a common engine block and bottom end, and transmission bell housing pattern for gasoline and diesel engines, slashing diesel production costs. A small common-block pickup truck diesel can be done the same way. The other payoff is that a gasoline engine based on a diesel bottom end will last a very long time.
US buyers tolerated the repair costs on the larger trucks because they were (usually) good designs that were torquey and appealing. As long as big trucks were selling, makers saw no reason to cover their asses by having diesel options in their small pickups. I argue that after getting slammed in the last fuel crisis they should have been prepared and they (obviously) chose not to be. Ceding market after market and relying on a big truck/SUV platform monoculture proved a vulnerability, just as building cars with (essentially, they are so close drivetrain swaps from car to truck are common) pickup truck drivetrains was in the 1970s.
Toyota, OTOH, built its image on small trucks and small gasoline engines. There was probably no reason to risk anything by changing a formula that has worked so well over time no matter what the fuel prices. Toyota is inherently ready for high gas prices because of their product line.
Kammback (Score:4, Informative)
The Prius features the raindrop design,
The Prius features a modified raindrop design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammback [wikipedia.org]